The current turmoil in American higher education has particularly hit the Ivy League hard. Leaders of schools like Harvard and Penn made fools of themselves and their universities in congressional testimony, and Columbia’s continued demonstrations and expressions of antisemitic behavior have appalled millions living far away from its hallowed halls. President Trump has even threatened Harvard with the removal of its tax-exempt status. Amidst all of this, strangely, Yale University (along with the least woke Ivy, Dartmouth College) has been largely immune to the adverse publicity, receiving very little press (or Trump) attention until recently, and seemingly even shown some possible signs of reasonableness as it shed what my friend Steve Hayward appropriately recently referred to as its “cowardly and craven former president Peter Salovey.” (RELATED: The Fall of Harvard: How America’s Oldest University Became Its Most Expensive Liability)
Alas, two recent happenings demonstrate Yale is like the others, living in an administratively driven Woke Fairyland virtually devoid of common sense, respect for American ideals, and those providing immense financial support. The first story, shared with me by Yale Law alum Mike DeBow, was about Yale announcing the formation of a new 10-person “Committee on Trust in Higher Education.” The group apparently is to come up with recommendations as to how Yale should respond to the very real threats posed by the federal government, irate politicians, some alumni, and even the general public.
According to the Yale-based Buckley Institute, of the 10 members appointed to the committee, information on the political affiliation or donations of nine of them was available. Seven were registered Democrats or supported Democratic causes financially, while two were seemingly independent or apolitical. There were no Republicans, in keeping with the overwhelming Democratic political orientation of the faculty. One of the major criticisms of the Ivies (and other universities) is the overwhelmingly progressive political orientation of the faculty; one would assume a university taking a fresh look at its operations and seeking to deal with issues such as a lack of intellectual diversity might include at least minimal representation of those with clearly different political perspectives. (RELATED: Creative Destruction Comes to Universities)
The Democratic dominance on college campuses in part almost certainly reflects the fact that almost all universities, even so-called “private” ones, are utterly dependent on government support, and Democrats typically are more supportive of large grants to colleges.
Meanwhile, the headline of a recent Yale Daily News story reveals a second campus brouhaha: “Yale Faculty Call for Admin Hiring Freeze, Independent Audit Amid Concerns over Bureaucratic Expansion.” Professors are upset with restrictions on faculty appointments at a place where there are apparently more administrators than faculty, crowding out an emphasis on the prime functions of a university, the dissemination and discovery of truth and beauty. The faculty has lost control of the mission even at schools where preeminent scholars reside. (RELATED: Remember the College Treachery)
Yale is a rich school, with over $3 million in endowment for each student, or more than $120,000 per student, even if annual spending is a conservative four percent of investment principle — several times as much as the typical university spends annually for everything. Yale indirectly benefits from features of federal law that permit charitable deductions to the institution that lower income or estate taxes for donors. This enclave of academic aristocracy, however, apparently is in a bit of financial pinch, with reports that it is borrowing more than $800 million from the sale of bonds to shield itself somewhat from an onslaught of diminished financial support from its benefactors, including the federal government and probably some irate private donors. (RELATED: End US Taxpayer Support for the Higher Education Gravy Train)
The sad situation, in a way, reminds me of a famed Yale song: The Whippenpoof Song. The Whippenpoofs are a justly famous Yale a cappella group of 14 singers whose theme song is over 100 years old, and a few lines from it, lamentably, sort of describe Yale today:
We’re poor little lambs who lost our way, baa, baa, baa
We’re little black sheep who have gone astray, baa, baa, baa.Gentlemen songsters off on a spree
Doomed from here to eternityLord have mercy on such as we
Baa, baa, baa.
READ MORE from Richard K. Vedder:
Creative Destruction Comes to Universities
